This story really starts back in June of 2014 when our good friends Cat and Rich on s/v Anna left their boat in Ecuador and rented a 4x4 truck/camper in Chile. They land traveled from Puerto Montt all the way down to Ushuaia. Their trip planted a seed in my mind.

Now roll the clock forward a year, and Reina and I have gotten Karma to Puerto Montt and are learning what the "rainy" season in this area is really like. Let me tell you it is really RAINY!!!! We decided to wait for the weather to improve to start our "Karma Adventures" south through the fjords. By talking with the locals we learned that by September the weather would start to improve; so that left us June through August to do some land travel.

I started looking at various campers for sale on some South American websites that are geared to foreigners traveling in South America. Surprisingly, there are not a lot of 4x4 campers for sale in Chile that are registered in Chile. There are a lot of "land cruisers" (not referring to the car) also referred to as overlanders that make South America their final destination in their journey. They then want to sell their expedition vehicles rather than taking them back to their home country.

I also looked into renting a camper like Rich and Cat did but concluded that because we wanted to spend so many months land traveling, the cost to rent a unit was too expensive; especially considering that we want to do this for the next few "rainy" seasons.

I was having a hard time finding a 4x4 vehicle that worked within our budget and was suitable for the type of travel we wanted to do in South America. Meanwhile, Reina and I were invited to a family reunion for the Seiler (dad's) side of the family in the Pocono Mountains in Pennsylvania. They guy who was putting this all together is Eric, Reina's uncle. Eric was generous enough to help us with airfare and to make it a surprise visit for Reina's mom and dad. All this was happing on July 4th weekend. Since we were flying all the way from Chile we decided to go early and also visit my mom and dad in Michigan.

While in Michigan I was browsing through my South American websites and about had a heart attack; there it was....the ultimate 4x4 overlander vehicle and camper!!!. If you had asked me to pick the ultimate truck/camper setup this is the exact vehicle and camper I would have described.



The truck is a 2004 Land Rover Defender 130 with a German made camper by a company called Tisher. I was familiar with the camper and its construction and felt that it was the perfect camper for the abuse it would receive in South America. The Land Rover Defender is just bad ass. It is very utilitarian, has been made for many years and has been used all over the world (except the US of course). It has been used for both military and civilian applications and has a reputation for being a true work horse for off road use. Check out the link below for the international off road competition called the Camel Trophy. This competition puts the best amateur drivers from all over the world in similarly set up Land Rover Defenders to represent their country. The vehicles were for the most part stock vehicles. Watch the video below, and you will understand why I say they are Bad Ass!!





The Defender 130 is similar to what you saw in the video which are the 110's. The main difference is the 130 is more of a 4 door pickup truck. The one I purchased is a 2004 version called the TD5 which was designed to meet the new Euro emission standards. The engine is a 2.5L 5 cylinder, intercooled turbo, common rail electronic fuel injection engine. It has a few miles on it, 180,000 to be exact, which is nothing when you are talking about a Land Rover!!! (So they say.) It is a full time 4x4 with high and low gear ranges and a locking central differential. It is the most powerful engine ever offered in the Defender. The payload capacity is over 3000 pounds. It is the perfect vehicle except for its electronic fuel injection. A lot of diehard Land Rover people love the non TD5 version because they are simple vehicles with simple engines that are all mechanical (not electronic) and easy to rebuild; but they also all complain about performance, especially if you are planning on carrying a very heavy camper on the back. The TD5 took care of the performance problems; and other then some early production issues that had been worked out by 2004, the TD5 has proven itself to be very reliable.

I could go on and on about the vehicle but I am straying from the story...

Remember, I am learning all about this while on vacation in the States. The sellers, Werner and Melanie, a Swiss couple, were the second owners of the Land Rover. They purchased the Tisher camper new and had it specifically built for the Land Rover. They have been land traveling with this rig for over 6 years. They covered Europe, shipped the camper to Canada, traveled the east coast and the west coast of the US and Alaska and worked down through all of Central and South America to the bottom of Chile, back up through Argentina, and to Paraguay where they were trying to sell it. They were done with their adventure and felt that it was not worth the cost to ship the rig back to Europe so they were trying to sell it in South America.

One problem with this type of transaction is a communication problem because of language challenges. Their first language is Swiss-German but their English was pretty good, especially Werner's. I asked many questions via email and got back very short and not specific answers which should have been a red flag. Based on their representation of the vehicle and the camper we agreed on a price and made arrangements to get to Paraguay to inspect the rig. They were willing to do whatever was necessary for me to take possession and legally drive the vehicle. It is a little tricky because it is Swiss tagged and titled. They also agreed to cross the border into Argentina with me so that I could get the paperwork into my name and make sure there were no problems, and then re-enter Paraguay.

Reina and I flew back from the US to Puerto Montt on July 8th and then turned around and flew to Asuncion, Paraguay on the 10th. We were not the only visitors to arrive in Asuncion on the 10th. The little country of Paraguay, much less the exact city of Asuncion, was also having a special visitor on the same day we were arriving........THE POPE...... Pope Francis had never been to Paraguay before and it is probably the biggest thing that ever has happened there. Needless to say, it was causing a logistical problem for us because the country was literally going to shut down for his visit including the roads. We arrived into Paraguay at 1 am and took a cab out of the city to the town of Altos, just north of Asuncion where the camper was located, before everything shut down. By the time we arrived it was 3 am and we were beat.

The camper was parked at a really cool place called "Hasta La Pasta". Hasta La Pasta is a small resort owned by a Swiss and a German couple. It is located on a large piece of property with two private homes (one for the owners and one for the owner's parents), two private cabanas and a small bungalow for rent, a couple of campsites with power, a pool, and "restaurant". They prepare breakfast and dinner if you want. They also make fresh pasta onsite and sell it locally. The pizza and pasta was reasonably priced and really good. The property is in a very nice wooded area with a great view overlooking a large lake.







The night, actually morning, we arrived we stayed in one of the cabanas and got a few hours of rest. We woke late Saturday morning and got our first glimpse of the Land Rover and the camper.



I must say, I felt like a kid all excited about that first used car. It is a very sexy vehicle in a utilitarian sort of way. I inspected the vehicle top to bottom the best I could. In a perfect world you would take the truck to your local Land Rover dealer and have a thorough test done on the engine and have them go through the systems; well that was not going to happen in Paraguay. Land Rovers are relatively rare in South America. I have some experience with diesel engines and this one sounded and drove very well even with the weight of the camper on its back. I went over with Werner the various components that were not working and the maintenance history on the truck. Little things started to show up that were never disclosed even though they were asked. One fender had been repainted, the windshield had a crack, and there was damage to the truck bed that the camper sits in; just to name a few of the issues. He did tell me about how he reinforced the bed of the truck to support the weight of the camper but he did not tell me why. Now I learn that the back of the camper had taken a hit and also the side of the camper had been badly damaged. I think the frame of the truck needed to be repaired as a result of some of the damage. I asked why he did not tell me about the damage when I specifically asked the question. He said, "it is not damaged any more, it is repaired". So that is how it is going to be...

Reina and I were not totally happy with the camper either. We realize that it has been used hard and some of the wear and tear should be expected but there was definite damage that should have been disclosed before we bought two plane tickets to Paraguay. Over all I was still happy with the deal in spite of the misrepresentation of the vehicle, I just was not so happy with the sellers and I was starting to second guess everything they were telling me.

Reina and I decided to move forward with the purchase of the vehicle. We sent them a deposit and were going to move onto the camper to continue to test the systems. The one piece of equipment on the camper that had to work was the heater because we wanted to take the camper up to the mountains to go skiing. We had started the heater/water heater system earlier and heard it start up fine but I never ran it continuously. That night the unit started out ok but then it stopped and there was some flashing code on the control panel indicating a fault code. When I told Werner about the problem he told me that "it was working and that it was not his problem". That is when things went from so-so to really bad. It got uncomfortable and to make it worse the hostel lost power so we could not use the internet to try and figure out how to fix the problem. I told him the deal was off if he could not get the heater to work. For the next two days we (meaning I) worked on the heater. Werner was in town looking for an internet connection to talk to the German manufacturer and for guidance. I found some restriction in the inlet side of the exhaust system which might have been related? When we reinstalled the unit the fault code went away and the unit started to function properly (for the time being).

There still was a lot of tension and a lot of disappointment in how the whole thing was handled. Before we were willing to make the final payment we still needed to cross the border. So Melanie (the legal owner of the vehicle) and I took off for the border with Argentina near Asuncion. We cleared ourselves and the vehicle out of Paraguay and then went to the next window to clear into Argentina and that is where I learned that a US citizen needed to pay a "reciprocity fee" to enter Argentina and it could only be purchased online. Needless to say, Melanie was not very happy with me. She and the vehicle cleared into Argentina without me. She then turned the Land Rover around and then I took all of the documents and proceeded to clear back into Paraguay with the vehicle under my name, no problem. I would have preferred to have cleared into Argentina in my name but it was the best I could do at the time and it provided me some level of comfort to know that the paperwork authorizing me to drive the vehicle would be accepted at the border. Because I am a US resident and the vehicle is Swiss registered I cannot transfer the title and get US plates until the vehicle is back in the US; until that time I have an official document giving me authorization to drive the vehicle for the next twenty years. I realize it is a risk but it is the only way to handle our situation. The most ideal situation would have been to buy something in Chile from a Chilean but I could not find anything in Chile.

We drove back to Hasta La Pasta with no problems. The truck ran great. We agreed to wire the balance of the purchase. The next morning when they got the wire into their account, they came to the camper and were as nice as can be to us. They gave us the necessary paperwork and that ended any further assistance we got from them. They informed us that they were taking a bus the next day to Asuncion to purchase their bus tickets to Sao Paolo, Brazil to get a flight to Switzerland. This meant they were no longer going to be available to answer any more of our questions, we were on our own. Reina and I told them that we would prefer that they stay in Paraguay until we successfully got into Argentina which we were going to do the following day. It was obvious we were not going to get anymore assistance from them so we just hoped for the best. We are pretty self-reliant and we did not need their help anyway!

So our adventure began at Hasta La Pasta in Los Altos, Paraguay on July 19th.

There is one more detail that I feel needs an explanation. We needed to name our new rig. When it comes to a boat the name is very important. There was a whole ritual that went along with the naming of Karma. As far as land yachts go, I don't think that people get that passionate about their vehicles but we still feel that ours needed a proper name. Reina chose "T-Ray" for Tierra del Reina. It has always been an inside joke that we should have named Karma "Reina del Mar" because according to her, all good husbands name their boats after their wives (she is joking, I think). After getting to know the rig better she decided she no longer wanted it named after her (can't imagine why) so we were back to trying to come up with an appropriate name. There was one word that kept coming to mind, that word is "Putty".

Puddy is a character from the sitcom Seinfeld. He was the on again off again boyfriend of Elaine. In our favorite episode with him he is a used car salesman that is selling a car to Jerry. As we were getting to know the camper and Land Rover we kept finding things that have been "fixed" with this grey putty like substance. It is everywhere. We even had a fuel line that was "fixed" with the stuff. I guess the Swiss use putty like we use duct tape. So there you have it, from this day forth, we will recognize the camper as "Putty".


We put on our happy faces for the picture. Werner and Melanie are standing next to me and Marion the owner of Hasta la Pasta is next to Reina.